


As It Should Be

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, but then the wranglers fixed it! :D, the actual relationship tag was too long for Ao3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: This is OT8 fluff for emeraldembers.Jack, Tooth, Bunny, North, Katherine, Nightlight, Sandy, and Pitch have a relaxing day in the Warren. Katherine and Nightlight are appropriately aged for such things.It’s not explicit at all, but everyone’s naked and really chill around each other. Except not “chill”, that is, because in the Warren it’s always Springtime, and the good part of Springtime, and I’m rambling now, let’s start the fic!
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost/Katherine/Nightlight/Nicholas St. North/Pitch Black/Sandy/Toothiana, Everyone/Everyone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: RotG Polyamory Fics





	As It Should Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emerald Embers (emeraldembers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldembers/gifts).



> Originally posted on 2/7/2014.
> 
> Remember this, EmeraldEmbers?

Another lazy day in the Warren. Jack stretches out on the lush grass, so pale he looks like an out-of-place snow drift, save for a few choice accents of delicate pink. Tooth, appearing just as she always does, plays with one of his hands as he dozes, sometimes massaging it, sometimes lightly kissing the many small, faint, old, old scars on his fingers that she’s so glad to have had the chance to memorize, by lips and fingertips, over the past few years. Behind her, Bunny, minus his armguards, foot wrappings, and bandolier, slowly preens her.

“You need this more now that you’re back out in the field,” he says softly, a damaged feather falling out as he carefully smooths the still-healthy ones. He picks it out from between his fingers and turns it so it catches the always-fresh light of the Warren. Though damaged, it’s still beautiful, an iridescent green that shifts to blue only while being held at one precise angle.

“It all works out,” Tooth says through a yawn. “We weren’t doing anything like this before, and now we are, so. Ooh, that didn’t really make sense.” She shifts on the grass. “Will you keep going? Even though I’m probably going to fall asleep?”

“Can I keep the feathers that fall out?” Bunny asks. “I think if I had them to reference I could actually manage to replicate the colors.”

Tooth nods. “You know you’re not supposed to talk about work on these days.”

“Jack’s not enforcing that rule right now,” Bunny says, smiling as he looks over his sleeping form.

“I will then,” Tooth says. “The penalty for talking about work is five more minutes of preening me for each incident.”

Bunny snorts. “So the important thing about chocolate is…”

A little way from the three of them, in a more heavily flowered part of the meadow, Katherine, grown up long ago, reclines against North’s chest, her long hair flowing over his tattoos there his only covering. She braids flowers into his beard, and though their conversation is too low to be heard by the others in the Warren, the laughter they share is obvious, just as are the kisses passed between them.

Katherine playfully drapes North’s braided beard loosely over her bare breasts; in reply, North says something that has her collapse into a jiggling fit of giggles on the grass before she climbs atop North to straddle his waist, rest her head on his shoulder, pressing as much of her blank to his inked skin as possible. North’s answering laugh moves her, but she only hangs on tighter. When they both calm a little, North rubs his hands up and down her back and she very audibly sighs.

“You’re just going to fall asleep like that,” Bunny calls to her.

“What are you doing to Tooth, then?” she calls back. “There’ll be time to be awake later.” North gives her bottom a squeeze at this and she tugs on his beard before settling down against him again.

A few yards away from the pair and the trio, Sandy, Pitch, and Nightlight relax against a small grassy hummock partly shaded by a fruit tree, Nightlight wrapping his no longer so boyish yet still slender moon-luminous form around Sandy. He’s positioned himself so he can easily kiss the scar Pitch’s arrow left on his back, though the symbolic weight of the action has been lost for quite a while—now, he’s mostly just enjoying the sweetness of Sandy’s skin. Yet it’s not just his mouth that’s idly busy: as they lie there, Nightlight moves his hands gently over Sandy’s ample golden curves, his fingers tracing new constellations, meant to tickle, between his glittering freckles.

Sandy’s smile opens wide in silent laughter, and Pitch, clothed only by the shadow of the tree, tries to take advantage of the situation to feed Sandy little slivers of apple from a nearby bowl of fruit. Sandy’s having none of it, closing his lips as soon as Pitch’s fingers near his face, but Pitch doesn’t seem to mind, contentedly consuming each morsel that’s his due for losing a round of this game.

When Nightlight rejects the same offers, however, he falls dramatically to lie full-length on the ground, half in sun and half in shadow, sighing and throwing his arm over his eyes, though he doesn’t say anything. He rarely does, around these two, unless they ask.

With Pitch’s face covered, Sandy wiggles mostly out of Nightlight’s arms, taking hold of his hand to maintain contact. They exchange a look and grin. As one, they lean down—Sandy, to kiss Pitch’s mouth; Nightlight, to kiss the starburst scar on his chest. Pitch squirms when he feels Nightlight’s lips on his scar, and only Sandy’s hands on his shoulders keep him in place—though not with _too_ much effort. They all three know that Pitch loves the devotions Nightlight pays to the scar he left, but he’s not yet been able to accept that he deserves it. And so he must be allowed his token resistance, and Sandy his token dominance.

Beneath their attentions, Pitch soon forgets all the rules of the games he thinks he has to play, and lets his hands wander over their skin, half-casually, half- worshipfully, and entirely as if he is perfectly content in this moment, with no aim but to enjoy the delightful contrast, the warmth and the electricity, the gold and platinum, of his luminous lovers. In turn, they indulge themselves in him, in the faintly bitter inexhaustible decadence of his mouth and skin.

“I’m telling you, it’s Nightlight,” Bunny says to Tooth, smoothing the feathers along her waist and thighs in long strokes. “It’s always him. The rest of us could be falling asleep—with a little petting, a little kissing, sure—and then he’ll do that _one thing_ to someone that they just can’t resist…”

“You like to watch him with Jack, though,” Tooth says. She moves closer to Jack and pulls Bunny over to lie down beside her.

He lightly taps her on the arm. “Don’t make me sound like such a dirty old man.” His voice softens. “I’ve never seen a couple laugh so much while making love.”

“He’s brought that out in all of us—haven’t you, Jack?” she asks, leaning over to kiss Jack on the corner of his mouth.

Jack smiles widely, his eyes still closed. “How’d you know I wasn’t asleep?”

“I’ve had plenty of practice telling fake sleep and real sleep apart.”

Jack laughs at himself. “Oh, right. Guess my brain was really sleeping, though.” He turns to face her, his hands joining Bunny’s in stroking her sides while she holds him close.

“Done putting yourself on display, then?” Bunny asks him, smirking.

“You know I’m not _nearly_ the worst offender in that regard,” Jack says, a little breathless, as Tooth’s started sucking a hickey onto his neck. “I was—I was just relaxing in—your Springtime.”

“So who should I complain to about that?”

“Ah—North?” Tooth’s laughter between them both threatens to permanently derail the whole conversation, but they still all tilt their heads to look toward the other groups. Katherine’s pulling North by the hand over to Sandy, Pitch, and Nightlight, and when they reach them, Katherine scoops up Sandy in her arms, blowing a raspberry into his neck before maneuvering him around into a deep kiss which he gladly returns.

Pitch’s complaints at such theft are stopped before they can really get going when North picks up both him and Nightlight. The action sends him into protest at such treatment: he’s a grown spirit, this is uncalled for, you—North’s lips meet his own just as he begins to form the word “oaf”, as always. In a few moments, he’s relaxed as much as Nightlight has against North’s broad chest. (Nightlight, of course, had been entirely unconcerned with keeping up appearances and had draped himself against North’s neck and shoulders as soon as he had been picked up.)

Sandy tumbles Katherine into the flowers, and, in a muddle of stolen kisses and caresses, they begin to make their way over to Bunny, Tooth, and Jack. North follows, whispering sweet nothings into the ears of Pitch and Nightlight as they approach the others.

“To tell the truth,” Bunny says, his eyes almost closed, “I wouldn’t complain about anyone, to anyone. It’s one of the reasons I like having you all here.”

“Hmm? What is?” Jack asks.

“I like it when everyone’s naked here,” Bunny says with a little laugh. “I like that my Warren’s the place where you’re all willing to be that way. Feels like that’s the way it should be. And I like seeing you as you are. Beautiful.”

“I’m going to tell North you said that,” Jack replies, and Bunny groans.

This time, Tooth’s laughter does derail the conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #Ugh I'm so tired of winter#look everyone's naked and kissing each other's scars and laughing#really what more could you want?
> 
> ab-memoria said: Bruh I never knew I needed an ot+ of ROTG/GOC…. ❤
> 
> emeraldembers reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> This is so gorgeously lush and sensual and happy right the way through <3\. It’s just such a delight seeing all of them with all their different body types just lazing around together, casually touching and enjoying each other’s company, and it is a perfect source of warm and fuzzy feelings.
> 
> Thank you so much hon. I got a date for my first therapy session btw - February 24th - and as of yesterday I’m now unemployed, so that’s one less stress in my life.
> 
> You’re an angel, and so is everyone else in this fandom as far as I’m concerned, because you have kept me going through the hardest year of my life, and I feel like things can only start going up from here.
> 
> *hugs*
> 
> gretchensinister reblogged this from whentheoceanmetsky and added:  
> THEN WHY IS THE MAN IN THE GIF CRYING :D But seriously the Warren is not a place for clothes and everyone needs this day so much #It was Bunny's idea#he was kind of awkward about it#because he's more used to being sarcastic#and kind of grouchy sometimes#so saying 'You're all so beautiful and I love you come and relax in paradise with me'#was more difficult than it needed to be
> 
> whentheoceanmetsky reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> THIS MAKES MY HEART SO HAPPY #MEMO TO ME: WORK MORE ON OT6 FIC #NO YOU DON'T #I WANT THIS ALWAYS #EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY #ITS LIKE MY HEART'S EATING THE MOST DELICIOUS DONUT TO EVER EXIST
> 
> ksclaw said: ahhh, this was so lovely to read <3 I’ve had a bad night thanks to a dumb cold, involving stupid fever dreams, so I needed something like this.


End file.
